Subsequently, Sundarti, who claimed to be abused by her late employer prior to the killings, was convicted of lesser charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in Singapore.

As a result, Sundarti decided to undergo further training to get a better-paying job in order to better assist her family financially during these difficult times.

The second job offer came from 34-year-old Angie Ng Wee Peng, the wife of 44-year-old businessman Drake Poh Teong Kang, who made headlines in 1998 for his plans to open a casino and resort in Myanmar.

Sundarti first realised this when she saw two other maids, known to her as Aminah and Jami, having their hairs pulled or got slapped for any small errors in their work.

At one point, she saw Aminah being thrown out of the house for perceived mistakes in her work, leading to police coming to the doorstep.

[9] Sundarti, who put the noodles and sauce in a plastic container filled with hot water, only got to eat a few bites before Ng took her to her Bukit Merah office.

After the murders, Sundarti finally calmed down and she thought of using fire to get rid of the evidence, and wanted to commit suicide by burning herself due to her fear of getting arrested and facing capital punishment.

[16] It was only on 10 June 2002, when autopsy results showed stab wounds on Ng and her daughter, that the police decided to arrest Sundarti as a suspect and charge her with murder.

[17][18][19] On 18 August 2003, Sundarti Supriyanto first stood trial in the High Court of Singapore for the double murder charges relating to the deaths of Ng and Crystal.

They also said that the witnesses who arrived at the raging crime scene noted that Sundarti looked calm when they found her with the baby, which meant she did not have any loss of self-control at all.

[27][28][29] In response, Sundarti’s lawyer Mohamed Muzammil bin Mohamed argued that Sundarti was not to be held liable for murder given that the crime was committed in a moment of loss of self-control and due to sudden and grave provocation caused by Ng’s mistreatment of her maid.

Mohamed also said that the killing was due to a sudden fight and his client was exercising her right to self-defence, given that she was physically a small-sized and frail young woman who was slightly larger than Ng and had no undue advantage over the victim, and she would have died or seriously injured had she not used the knife to confront Ng, who continually attacked the maid despite being injured.

The fight that ensued by the quarrel and with no premeditation was in favour of Sundarti since Ng was the aggressor and it was not of a cruel and unusual nature.

He stated that the abuse and humiliation that Ng deliberately caused on her maid daily had culminated into a huge frenzy that caused Sundarti to finally lose control of herself and attack Ng in the most violent and brutal manner, and the seemingly separate daily acts of abuse had in fact been closely linked to each other like a chain, which would be gravely sufficient to provoke a reasonable person in Sundarti’s position.

The nature of the numerous, haphazard grievous injuries found on Ng and her daughter was also sufficient to imply that Sundarti had indeed lost full control of herself as a result of the humiliation she suffered in Ng’s hands, and from the weak-looking, frail and thin appearance of Sundarti, whom he observed as a mild-mannered and soft-spoken person, she probably lost her head to such an extent that she used enormous force to inflict the deep injuries on Ng notwithstanding her exhaustion from extreme starvation.

He said that Sundarti did not meet the requirements since she did not suffer from any serious physical harm from the fight and there were extensive defensive wounds on Ng, hence he dismissed these two other defences.

In conclusion, the judge stated that the case was a tragic one as it brought much pain and suffering to both the victims and defendant, and their respective loved ones.

This tragedy, Justice Rubin implicitly stated, was started by Ng’s own malicious behaviour towards her maid, which made her partly responsible for her own self-demise at the hands of her maid who finally had had enough of her abuse and lost her self-control and thus committed the killings in a moment of uncontrollable rage and passion.

Also, Justice Rubin stated that the decision of Sundarti to save 18-month-old Leon from the fire clearly proved that Sundarti was “not an embodiment of wickedness and evil, but a woman of normal emotions who went awry momentarily.” From a past judgement of a British court case, Justice Rubin quoted, “manslaughter arises from the sudden heat of the passions, murder from the wickedness of the heart”.

After hearing the submissions from both the prosecution and defence, Justice Rubin decided to sentence Sundarti to the maximum term of life imprisonment, and backdate her sentence to the date of her arrest on 10 June 2002, based on the extreme violence and grave nature of the lethal attack Sundarti initiated against Ng and Crystal.

Poh had reportedly told newspapers that he refused to accept Sundarti’s apology for murdering his wife and daughter.

Even though True Files is viewable on meWATCH, for unknown reasons, the episode detailing Sundarti’s trial and crime is not available on the website.